What are the consequences of not having balanced cells? Is it obvious to the user?
Here is one example....if one cell was 0.5V higher than all the others, the BMS would stop ALL charging once that cell reached it's max voltage during charging and all the other cells would be 0.5V lower. Your total battery would be 1.5V lower than a full charge. Now that is an exaggeration as it could never be that bad but it shows the negative affect.
You would have a similar affect on the low end if a cell was lower than others.
In addition, if one cell is much higher or much lower than the others, it's getting to it's peak voltage too often or too low. That will cause cell degradation over time. Over time you will get WAY less cycles.
